A little about me...

I wrote this on myspace  after watching a video on youtube...

Hopefully this will help someone

I watched a video on youtube about a girl who was trying to decide whether or not to have WLS after years and years of being overweight and yo yo dieting... mourning over the loss of her 29 yr old sister back in March of this year due to a massive heart attack she is now scared for her life... and wants to know if it is the right decision... this is what I wrote to her..

Hello Elle,

I did respond to your video but I was so moved by it I decided I needed to write you a longer more personal response.

Let me give you a little info about myself.. We moved here to FL from NJ in Nov of 2004. I had health issues, sleep apnea edema etc. By January of 2005 I was admitted to the hospital with congestive heart failure weighing 700+ lbs... I too had been contemplating surgery for years because I had been over weight my whole life but that right there was my HEIGHEST weight and the deciding factor that I HAD TO DO IT.

I could not accomplish anything in NJ as I had no kind of medical insurance. I met a surgeon when i was in the hospital those 2 weeks. He told me that before he would even touch me.. i would have to lose at least 100 lbs and by that time i was 626 they were pumping me full of dieuretics to get rid of all the excess fluid I had in my body including my lungs. When he told me that i was upset. I thought to myself if i could lose all that weight then i wouldn't need surgery right? well long story short he put me on a low carb high protein diet... i did lose about 80 lbs and he still had not started all the preop testing... so i got aggravated and found another dr. went to another seminar.. and this dr suggested the gastric sleeve due to me being high risk with the congestive heart failure, c.opd, edema, severe sleep apnea, angina. so i stuck with him.. until my medicaid turned into medicare and his office told me i had to wait till they were approved as a center of excellence or medicare would not pay for it. so here we go with the waiting game again by this time i was down to 600 or the high 5 it kept goin up and down due to my congestive heart failure and fluid retention.

So i got fed up with him and my friend suggested me to go to another dr. who was one of the top 5 in the US his name... my angel... Dr. Raul Rosenthal i met him in August of 2007 i was 592.. i had a date by the end of october for november 8, 2007 day of surgery i was 564... today i sit here at 358 lbs... almost 9 months after surgery... am i happy with my decision? HELL YES. would i do it again?... IN A HEART BEAT... would i suggest it to you?... yes... it is a life long decision? it is a TOOL.. it is NOT the easy way out but when you have so much weight to lose.. it is a last resort... and a decision I would make again without a second thought.

I hope that all this info can be of some sort of help to you... anytime you need help or advice... i am here..

looking forward to getting to know you more...

Rachel